


Anchors

by fireflyeskies



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 04:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2533739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflyeskies/pseuds/fireflyeskies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla cannot believe she’s been strong armed into yet another movie night. It’s become a regular thing in room 307 as of late, mostly at the insistence of Laura and Mother Redhead over there who will not stop making eyes at Lafontaine. Carmilla would actually be annoyed if she had the presence of mind to, Perry’s the one that foisted this whole thing on them in the first place and now they’re not even watching the insipid rom-com they’ve got playing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anchors

Carmilla cannot believe she’s been strong armed into yet another movie night. It’s become a regular thing in room 307 as of late, mostly at the insistence of Laura and Mother Redhead over there who _will not stop_ making eyes at Lafontaine Carmilla would actually be annoyed if she had the presence of mind to, Perry’s the one that foisted this whole thing on them in the first place and now they’re not even watching the insipid rom-com they’ve got playing.

As it is she doesn’t have the presence of mind nor the will to care. Their merry little band has managed to squeeze themselves all into the one tiny room. Perry and Lafontaine curled up together in Carmilla’s bed ( _after_ making the bed because “really Carmilla how can you even function amongst all of this mess?” a remark which Carmilla promptly ignores) while Danny is stretched out on Laura’s bed with Laura resting between her knees, head pillowed on her stomach and Carmilla coiled around her chest like a cat. Only Laura is really watching the movie, Perry and Laf long since preoccupied with having a conversation that seems to be conveyed entirely non-verbally by merely looking at one another and Danny is almost half asleep with one hand still absently brushing through Carmilla’s hair.

It’s quiet and it’s lazy and nothing is exploding, nothing is on fire and there are no semi sentient fungus monsters attempting world domination. It’s exactly the kind of evening that Carmilla would once have sworn blind to be so not her thing. Now she’s beginning to realise that it’s exactly the kind of night she needed the most. She’s loathe to say so but she has to kind of admit that these idiots are making her soft. She’s even more unwilling to admit (in fact you’d likely have to drag it out of her via telepathy) that she actually doesn’t mind it.

Laura brings out things in her that she would have thought long dead, left in the tomb along with her last scraps of humanity. But Laura, kind sweet courageous Laura doesn’t agree, never did. And she pulled back every layer of cold callousness, every mental wall and every barricade to keep the world shut out and shone a light on the very best parts of Carmilla’s heart. Parts that Carmilla had centuries ago consigned to having rotted away into blackness in the pit of her chest.

She’s three hundred and thirty four and for nearly two hundred of those years she has considered herself monstrous. But Laura doesn’t agree, she doesn’t see it, she _refuses_ to see what despair Carmilla sees looking back at her from the mirror. Laura reaches in past the walls and the bones of her ribcage and pulls out her heart, unbeating but so very much alive. Human.

Danny on the other hand keeps her in check. Where Laura is gentle and doesn’t ever try to force the issue when she knows they’re on painful ground (except for that one time with the puppets for which Carmilla still hasn’t forgiven and will never let her live down) Danny knows when tenderness and a soft touch isn’t going to cut it. She knows when Carmilla just needs to drain it at all out of her system, when she needs someone to shout at and swear at in nine different languages, none of which Danny understands. Someone who’ll stop her from punching her fists through walls and tearing their room apart, and then to soothe the bruises afterwards and pick up the furniture when she does it anyway.

Danny is the one that she will go to with the worst of the nightmares, the ones that she just can’t go to Laura with.  The ones about the insides of the coffin and all of the heinous things that they did to her before they put her in the ground. Not because Laura is fragile or delicate, Carmilla knows that she would be able to cope with the knowledge of what they did to her, but she’d rather that she didn’t have to. It cost Carmilla enough to slur the words out to Danny one night over a bottle of tequila during Christmas break when it was just the two of them. The fleeting look of utter heartbreak on Danny’s face was enough; she can’t stomach putting Laura through the same. Although the look didn’t last long, it was swiftly replaced by a full bodied hug and a kiss that wiped away all traces of conversation to leave nothing but _them_ and this.

After a while longer of absent thought Carmilla realises that the room has fallen almost silent, the film having ended and the credits finished rolling with none of them any the wiser. Perry and Lafontaine are still locked in their loved-up little stupor over there, having progressed from silent conversation via eye contact to almost sickeningly sweet smiling and idly playing with one another’s hands. If Carmilla were anything but the undead fiend from the pits of hell, bereft of a heart or human emotions that she so _obviously is_ then she might’ve called them cute.

Danny is at this point well beyond half-asleep and is dead to the world, snoring lightly in Carmilla’s ear with one hand still tangled up in her hair somewhere. For all of Carmilla’s teasing Danny does actually look remarkably like an overgrown puppy when she sleeps. All red hair and sleepy little mumbles and long limbs that she hasn’t quite grown into yet.

She thinks that Laura must have fallen asleep too for how quiet she is until she looks down at where she still lies tucked between Danny’s knees and finds brown eyes gazing back at her. Laura quirks one eyebrow lazily at her “You’re thinking” she says softly, as if it’d actually rouse Danny or the others anyway. It’s like they’re all existing in their own separate bubbles when they get like this. Conscious of one another, but content to ignore each other’s presences entirely.

“Hmm”

“Whatcha thinking about?” Laura says reaching up with one hand to tangle with where Carmilla’s lies on Danny’s chest. She drags the pads of her thumbs over the bumps and ridges of knuckles and bones that have been broken and reset more times than counting. Every little scar over the palms of each hand that have never quite healed. Just because Carmilla doesn’t tell Laura in words of the story behind each scar and broken bone, it doesn’t mean Laura doesn’t know anyway.

Carmilla chuckles soft and low under her breath. What is she thinking about? For all of her words and her anachronistic manners of speaking she still finds all too often that words simply aren’t enough.

“Everything” she answers eventually and Laura merely nods and smiles because she knows. She always does.

Nights like these are not for pretty words and philosophy, Carmilla knows she is far too prone to playing the Byronic hero when her moods get the better of her. But nights like these aren’t for words, they are simply for _being_.

Carmilla Karnstein hasn’t considered herself a human or anything of the like in centuries, but with Laura, with Danny, hell even with Bonnie and Clyde over there, she’s starting to wonder if maybe she’s been wrong.


End file.
